


even if you're little

by epoenine



Category: New Girl
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 10:12:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8201485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epoenine/pseuds/epoenine
Summary: The boys can tell there’s a heavy weight on Jess’s shoulders the minute she walks into the loft. Her shoulders are slumped forward and all of the life seems to seep out of her when she pushes the door shut.





	

The boys can tell there’s a heavy weight on Jess’s shoulders the minute she walks into the loft. Her shoulders are slumped forward and all of the life seems to seep out of her when she pushes the door shut.

“What’s up, Jess?” asks Winston, fiddling with the remote to the TV, pausing the bootlegged version of Wicked that he burned onto a DVD. Nick is sitting next to him, looking like he was kind of engaged with the musical. If circumstances were different, she’d laugh.

After dropping her bag and her coat on the floor, Jess shuffles over to the couch, where she flops down into her spot. “I have acquired a--” she pauses, huffing a little. “A stray.”

“A stray what? Dog?” Winston asks.

“Remy’s not gonna let us have a dog, and I’m not going to persuade him,” Nick interrupts. He still have some unresolved, complicated feelings about what happened with Remy. They’re mostly negative.

“No, you guys,” Jess says. She leans her head back onto the couch and closes her eyes. “Like, a stray student. A girl.” Again, she pauses. “She was sent to the office because she got into a fight. This kid was making fun of her, I think it was about the clothes she wears--they’re boy’s clothes and too big for her--and so she punched the kid in the mouth. Turns out her mom died last year, and now she lives with her dad.”

“Shit,” Winston says, sighing a little. “That’s horrible. I can’t believe what she’s going through. We get a lot of kids at the station in similar situations, taken in for petty theft, but, damn. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Jess admits, her voice going quiet. “I don’t think she gets enough to eat. I don’t even know if she gets enough physical affection. I just want to give her a hug.”

They sit there in silence for a few moments, contemplating the circumstances.

“I don’t think there’s much you can do except try to be supportive,” Winston suggests, leaning forward a little, putting his hands on his knees. “I guess you just have to do what you think is right.”

“Yeah,” Jess agrees, taking in a deep breath. She stands, heading toward the kitchen. “I’m gonna pack her a lunch for tomorrow. Do we have any peanut butter left?” she asks the boys.

“There should be some in the cabinet above the sink,” Nick answers.

“Thanks,” Jess says, and gets to work making the best packed lunch she could possibly make.

*

“Hey, Mrs. Liu,” Jess says, walking up to one of the teachers monitoring lunch. The students in front of her ignore them. “Do you know where I can find Cassie?”

The woman huffs, folding her arms in front of her. “I don’t know which table she’s usually at--Michael, sit down,” she answers, turning to scold the boy running around his lunch table. “You’ll have to just keep an eye out for her.”

“Thanks, Leanne,” Jess tells her with a smile before walking away. She strolls across the lunchroom, looking for the familiar frightened face, the brown wide eyes, the black curly hair. Cassie doesn’t look like most of the students here--they live in a fairly well-off town, where kids grow up with enough on their plate and new shoes every year. Cassie, though. Her face is gaunt and her collarbones poke through her shirt. Jess remembers seeing the same scuffed up sneakers on her since last year.

In the far back corner, next to a kid who is suspiciously eyeing his grapes like he’s about to throw them, and another who is extremely focused on biting his chicken nuggets into different shapes, she sees Cassie with her nose in a book.

Jess walks up to her, a smile gentle settled on her lips, and says, “Hey, sweetie.” Cassie startles, looking up at Jess with her big-doe eyes. Jess reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder to calm her, but it seems like Cassie tenses when she sees the movement, so Jess drops her hand. “I can’t find my friend Mrs. Brown,” Jess starts, “we usually eat lunch together in my office. Will you eat lunch with me instead?” she asks her, and hopes the answer is yes.

After a few beats of silence, Cassie nods her head slowly, like she’s been caught doing something wrong.

“Great,” Jess says, and offers Cassie a hand to get up. Surprisingly, she takes it, and Jess leaves her hand on her frail shoulder as they make their way through the lunchroom and into Jess’s office.

Jess sits on the small couch in her office and pats the seat next to her. Cassie sits down and folds her hands in her lap, looking nervous.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Cassie,” Jess tells her, but she doesn’t seem to calm down. “I promise. I just thought you could use a friend,” she says. Cassie’s shoulders finally lose some of their rigidity. “I made a lunch for Mrs. Brown, but I think she and some other teachers bought something of their own. I don’t want it to go to waste. Do you want it?”

Cassie doesn’t answer, but Jess pulls the brown paper bag out of her tote anyway. After she pulls out her own as well, Cassie reaches forward and takes it from her.

“Do you like peanut butter and jelly?” Jess asks her, and is momentarily relieved when Cassie nods. She totally forgot about peanut allergies. “There’s oreos in there, too. They might be my favorite.”

Cassie gives her a small smile and it feels like Jess has won something.

“What book were you reading earlier?” she asks her, trying to start up some kind of conversation to put Cassie at ease.

“A Percy Jackson book,” Cassie answers, the first words she’s said to Jess all day. “The House of Hades.” She brings up the cover to show Jess.

“What’s it about?” Jess asks her, hoping that this small talk will get her to feel more comfortable, get her to open up.

“It’s about Greek mythology,” Cassie answers. “Well, Roman mythology, too. But I just like the Greek stuff.”

Jess nods. “Do you know a lot about it?”

“Just what these books have taught me,” Cassie shrugs, almost like Jess expected something more of her.

“That’s so cool, Cassie,” Jess tells her. “See, I never was into anything like that--cool stuff like mythology or, I don’t know, the piano. I learned to tap dance and make cupcakes. Not that those aren’t great, too, but you can do so much with a love of Greek mythology.”

“What kind of cupcakes do you make?” Cassie asks, her exterior starting to become softer. She takes a bite of one of the oreos from the lunch bag.

“All kinds,” Jess answers. “Vanilla, and chocolate, and one time I put strawberries in the batter and used strawberry icing. They tasted so good, I think I ate them all in one day.” Jess laughs, and Cassie joins in. “I can teach you, if you want. It’s not hard at all, you just have to follow the recipe. You can come over and we can bake the cupcakes and decorate them with any kind of sprinkles we want.”

Cassie looks hopeful, like she’d love to do that, like it’s something that she’d never thought she could do, but a second later, her face falls and she shuts down.

“I don’t think I would be able to,” Cassie admit, her shoulders slumping.

Worry curling in the pit of her stomach, Jess asks, “Why not?”

Cassie looks like she’s about to tell a secret that’s supposed to be kept. “My dad doesn’t let me go to my friend’s houses. He says I’m not allowed.” Jess looks at her, waiting for her to go on. “I’m not supposed to ask, either. It makes him really angry.”

“Angry?” Jess questions.

The next fews things happen so fast it’s hard to keep track of. Cassie looks up at her, nodding with her eyes trained on the floor. Jess picks her hand up, moving it to lay on her shoulder, to comfort her or something, and before she realizes her mistake, before she remembers what happened earlier, Cassie flinches back.

“I think I have to go to class, Ms. Day,” Cassie tells her, avoiding eye-contact and picking up her books.

“Wait, Cassie, I’m sorry--”

“Thank you for lunch,” Cassie says, walking toward the door. Right before she steps out into the hallway, she says, “I’m sorry, Ms. Day.”

Jess is left alone with the pit in her stomach crawling up her chest to curl around her heart. It hurts.

*

Jess isn’t able to find Cassie the next few days, no matter how hard she tries to. She’s not going to pull her out of class, if she’s even in class, so Jess walks around the hallways during passing time, trying to find her, looking for hunched shoulders ducking away from everybody.

During lunch, Jess stays by the table she found Cassie at before, but she’s nowhere to be seen.

Close to giving up, Jess walks back to her office, where she’ll sit in silence and ignore her food because she’s too worried to eat.

Passing the girl’s bathroom, Jess hears faint sniffling, and hope blooms in her chest. She walks in, standing in front of the stall that the student--hoping, hoping, hoping it’s Cassie--is in, waiting for some sort of acknowledgment. When none comes, Jess reaches out to tap against the metal door.

“Hello?” she asks, quietly, so her voice ringing throughout the bathroom won’t startle whoever is in the stall. “It’s Ms. Day, are you alright in there?”

“Yes,” comes the reply, and, oh, god, the relief Jess feels floods through her. It’s Cassie, and although she sounds like she’s upset, Jess is just glad that she’s found her.

“Cassie, it’s me, come out,” Jess says. “Whatever it is, I promise it’s okay, alright? It’s okay, you don’t have to hide from me.”

A minute passes, the longest minute of Jess’s entire life, before she can hear Cassie’s soft footsteps walk towards the stall door. The lock slides through and the door swings open, and Jess’s immediate reaction is to lift her hand up to cover her own mouth, because, god.

There’s a subtle, barely-there bruise along Cassie’s cheekbone, just barely showing through her dark skin, and on her mouth, a small cut divides her bottom lip into two unequal halves. Cassie looks like she’s tried to apply powdered makeup to the bruise on her cheek, but it’s patchy and hardly does anything.

“Honey,” Jess says, reaching out to her with both arms. After the initial flinching, which may just be an instinctive reaction to--to whatever this is, whatever caused the bruising on her face, Cassie goes willingly into Jess’s arms, letting herself be wrapped up in the kind of hug she deserves.

After a few minutes of giving Cassie her head, a tight wrap of her arms around the bones in her shoulders, Jess pulls back and takes Cassie’s hand in hers, leading her out of the bathroom stall and into the hallway. She can just barely see the shine in Cassie’s eyes from pent up tears.

“Go grab your stuff and come to my office, okay? I’m going to take you to my--where I live, and you’re gonna be safe--for a little while, at least. Does that sound good?” Jess asks her, sounding a little bit choked up herself.

“Yes, Ms. Day,” answers Cassie, and her shy politeness tears at Jess’s heart. Before sending her to get her things, Jess runs her thumb gentle along the bruised skin of Cassie’s cheek, then pulling her into a quick hug before letting her go.

Jess makes the necessary arrangements she has to before packs up her stuff to leave. She makes sure to grab the bag of candy she keeps in her desk for students who come to see her.

Cassie is standing in the hallway outside her office when Jess leaves the room. Her eyes are downcast even when Jess stands next to her.

“All set to go?” Jess asks, a constant furrow between her brows from worry. Cassie just nods, her lips closed tightly, almost like she’s trained herself to keep them together no matter what. “Alright.”

They make it out to Jess’s car within minutes, nobody stopping to ask them questions even as teachers watched Cassie leave with Jess.

It’s the middle of December, and even though southern California doesn’t get very cold, it’s still enough to need a coat. As they settle in Jess’s car, Jess notices that Cassie’s jacket is threadbare, and she sees her shiver.

Immediately, Jess reaches to turn the heat on full blast. As it warms Cassie’s skin, a little bit of tension seeps out of her.

The drive to the loft is quiet and the silence continues when they’re in the elevator. Jess unlocks the door and leads Cassie inside. As Jess sets her stuff down, Cassie stays still but lets her curious eyes wander.

“I can take your jacket, Cassie,” Jess says, putting her own on the coat rack they have placed next to the door.

Cassie shrugs out of her jacket, revealing skinny little arms. She hands it over to Jess and says, “Thanks, Ms. Day.”

“No problem,” Jess tells her, and tries her best to smile, even though the worry inside her is becoming unbearable. “You can sit right there on the couch, find something to watch on the TV, alright? I’m going to call my friend. You’ll be okay?”

“Yes, thank you,” Cassie says, settling down at the spot on the couch Jess pointed to. “Wait, Ms. Day?”

“What’s up?” Jess asks, stilling her finger over the call button.

“Can I use the restroom?” Cassie’s voice is quiet as she stutters out the question.

“Of course,” Jess says, smiling reassuringly. “It’s down the hall to the left. You don’t have to ask that, sweetie.”

Cassie averts her eyes and says, “Thank you, Ms. Day.” She gets up and walks to the bathroom.

After walking to the kitchen, Jess calls Winston, hoping he’ll know what to do in this situation.

“Jess?” he answers, sounding like his mouth is full. He pauses for a second. “I’m on my break, what do you need?”

“I brought Cassie back to the loft,” Jess admits, trying to keep her voice down so Cassie won’t hear. “I don’t know what else to do. Winston, I think her father abuses her.”

Jess can hear Winston sigh uneasily on the line. “I don’t know, Jess,” he says, sounding conflicted. “That’s more for CPS, or something. Do you want to get a social worker involved?”

After a moment of silence, Jess hears Cassie walk back into the living room, watches her settle down on the couch. Cassie looks like she’s scared of disrupting everything, even the air.

“Yeah,” Jess says, absently, thinking about giving Cassie a space where she finally feels like she belongs. “Yeah, I do.” Once she says a quick goodbye to Winston, Jess hangs up the phone and walks into the living room. “Cassie?” Jess asks.

Cassie turns her head, the purple bruise bright on her cheekbone, and answers, “Yes, Ms. Day?”

Jess takes in her worried eyes, her lips bitten from nervousness, her fingers twisting anxiously. “How about you and I make a phone call?”

Cassie nods, and Jess knows that after this, she’ll finally have someone she can trust.


End file.
